Privacy and security belongs in the back office

Most technology companies in Europe and the Middle East think that data privacy and security is a back office requirement and do not need to make any decisions about it.

Beancounters at KPMG have just released their Business Leaders Survey and found that only seven percent of senior technology company executives said that “addressing risk throughout the organisation” is a priority. KPMG was a little surprised by the findings which are the total opposite to other surveys which show widespread concerns over security and privacy among consumers.

When using a mobile phone for mCommerce, the majority of respondents in the UK said they were concerned, either over the potential for credit card information to be intercepted by an unauthorised party or the threat of unauthorised parties accessing personally identifiable information. Tudor Aw, KPMG’s European head of technology, said it was a major concern that businesses still treat data security as nothing more than a hygiene exercise when it should be elevated to be a more strategic concern.

“Concerns over data security are a prime barrier, for example, to full-blown acceptance of cloud technology because end users simply harbour too many nagging doubts over data security,” he said. “The sooner that technology companies stop treating this as a back office issue, the better. This is a strategic front-end, customer facing issue which has massive ramifications for sales, marketing and business development, and should be treated accordingly,” Aw added